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Xbox group product manager Aaron Greenberg said Thursday that Microsoft's Xbox 360 console has picked up the core gamer demographic, citing the Xbox 360's year head start over Sony's PlayStation 3.

"I think the battle for the core user is sort of over," Greenberg told Next-Gen. "We're heading now well beyond 20 million in console sales. I feel we've secured that core buyer, and that gives us quite a bit of an advantage versus PS3, which is lateto the game and still at a price disadvantage relative to the Xbox."

Speaking on the NPD's March hardware sales data released yesterday, Greenberg suggested that the rise of the Blu-ray format over Microsoft-backed HD DVD has little to do with current hardware sales trends.

"It seems pretty clear that while Blu-ray may have won, consumers don't care. PS3 sales have actually declined week over week and month to month since the format war has ended," Greenberg added. "Games are what sell systems, and we feel pretty good about where we're at in that position."

The PlayStation 3's 2008 line-up includes several exclusive titles aimed at the core gamer demographic, including Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Solid 4 and Insomniac Games' Resistance 2, but Greenberg suggested that such efforts won't hold up against the Xbox 360's lead.

"I think the type of audience that they are going after with many of those games, frankly, are Xbox 360 owners... They're trying to go after a consumer that has already bought an Xbox 360, and frankly has a much broader lineup with more titles and more exclusives. You could say that they showed up with too little, too late."